Hey everyone. I just wanted to know if my tank would ever give me a 0 reading for ammonia when my water has .25ppm of ammonia?
These are the results right before I did my water change this afternoon. It's ammonia, nitrite and nitrate respectively. I'm just curious if my tank is truly "cycled" considering I have nitrates and no nitrites, but ~ .25 ammonia.
And for the record, I use Prime as my water conditioner.
When your tank is fully cycled it should process out a .25 tap water ammonia given your tank isn't over stocked & you have the right filtration. How long has your tank been set up? What size? How many fish? My 10g took 6 wks to show nitrites & then I had them for 2 wks. Did you use any kind of bacteria booster?
I have a five gallon tank with an AquaClear 20 filter. It's been up and running since Februrary. It was fully cycled in April, but since I moved to my apartment complex in August, I've always had a .25 ammonia reading. Prior to moving here, I didn't. There was no ammonia in the water at my previous location(s).
The tank's only inhabitants are a male betta fish and a single mystery snail.
I used Tetra Safestart back in August, but I'm not sure if that's what you were talking about when you said "bacteria booster."
ALSO, my tank has wisteria and anacharis in it, which is another reason I'm not sure why I'm getting an ammonia reading.
Did you change the filter when you moved or keep the existing wet until you got it set back up? It's possible you're going through a mini cycle. But being that its been set up since August it should be cycled & like I stated previously, .25 isn't that high so your BB should be processing it out. That's the reading you get right after a water change & 24 hrs later? I know my ammonia reading almost always seems to be about .25 or slightly green but I don't worry about it unless it goes higher. Yours doesn't look quite .25 but definitely shows a trace. Did you test your tap water straight from the tap & then by putting some in a glass, stirring it occasionally & testing it 24 hrs later?
I drained MOST of the water out of the tank and put the filter media under the gravel to keep it wet.
The .25 reading was taken right BEFORE my weekly water change. In other words, the water that was test had been in the tank for a week.
When I first tested my water source for ammonia, it was straight from the tap. I just added the solutions, shook it, and let it sit for maybe two minutes.
I was told by someone before that it didn't matter if I had the .25ish ammonia reading because I used Prime and that converted it to something *less* dangerous, but I don't know, it still concerns me.
How dangerous it is depends on the temp and the Ph. Standard ammonia tests dont really give an accurate reading of harmful ammonia in the tank - it measures all the ammonia, both harmful and the not as harmful. Seachem makes their own ammonia tests to be used with Prime and some of the other water conditioners that measures only the harmful ammonia.
Thanks for your response! If my pH is at 7.6 and my tank is kept at a steady 80 degrees, how harmful is the ammonia that I, for some reason, can't get out of my tank?
Well, it sure looks more yellow than light green to me. You have 0 nitrite & about 5.0 ppm for nitrate. I think your tank is still holding steady, is your ph < than 7 ?
There are some calculations you have to do to figure it out. I'm horrible at that stuff so I just went ahead and bought the Seachem test kit, altho since my tanks are cycled I hardly use it. Still good to have around tho and I did use it after the hurricane last week.
Here are some links if you are interested in trying to do the calculations:
I'm assuming that the ammonia that's left in my tank isn't really the "toxic" ammonia. All of the calculation pages you gave me were for 1ppm ammonia, and it was virtually nonexistent at my pH and Temperature. So, with that reasoning, I'm assuming there's an even smaller quantity of "dangerous" ammonia in my tank since I'm getting a reading of ~.25ppm.
Actually, according to this, my ammonia reading is about 0.0064 ppm. And while I'm happy it's deemed "safe," will it ever be 0? Or should I just expect my test results to always look as they do in the first post?
If the tank it properly cycled it should be at 0 within a few hours of adding your tap water . It's quite odd that it's not if you're using a standard drop test as they are not all that sensitive. By that I mean that the Seachem test can detect even trace amounts of ammonia. I just did some tests cause this post got me wondering about it all, and on the standard API test it showed 0, the Seachem test for dangerous ammonia was 0, but the Seachem test for total ammonia had a very faint reading that the API test didn't even register.
Maybe your test kit is expired? Try it on something that you know should have 0 ammonia, such as a bottle of Deer Park water (not all bottled waters are created equal, but Deer Park is pretty good) and see what happens.
Oh sorry, I read your post earlier today and completely forgot to respond to it.
My tests aren't supposed to expire until 2017, and when I did a test on a bottle of deer park water, it gave me a similar reading to the one in my first post. It wasn't ABSOLUTELY yellow, but had a sort of greenish tint to it. I'm not really sure what's going on. Maybe it's the lighting in my room or something?
I always read my vials in tanklight (6500K) or daylight.
OldFishLady is fond of pointing out: there will always be a little ammonia in the tank. There are limitations to the accuracy of our hobby-grade, easilly affordable test kits.
I tried experimenting with lighting this time. In both pictures, I tested my tank's water (left vial) and a bottle of deer park water (right vial.) In the left picture, the vials are in front of a white piece of printer paper in front of my tank (without it, the test results are inaccurate) and in the right picture, they're in front the same piece of computer paper, but in front of my window, blinds closed.
edit: Okay, sort of disregard those pictures. After taking them, I looked over at the vials (which were in front of the window) and apparently, the one on the left changed colors. My camera died, and I tried to use my phone, but it couldn't quite capture the difference in colors. So, I had to use my laptop's webcam. Hopefully you all can see what I see.
I'm not able to get a good picture of the source water vial. It's night time here so I can't use the window for natural light, and my camera(s) make(s) it look yellow. But in person, it's an unmistakably clear .25ppm.
Also, today's my water change day and my tank is at a definite .5ppm. At the same time, my nitrites are 0 and nitrates are abnormally high at 10ppm (it's usually 5ppm). What's going on?
As I research and correspond about nitrite with both experienced and new keepers, I get more...well, confused is too strong, but...
It seems sometimes nitrite-processing bacteria will convert it straight to nitrate without actually reading measurable nitrite. And sometimes nitrites will increase and refuse to reduce and never show nitrates.
A riddle, wrapped in a quandary enmeshed in an enigma.
Some of it is in personal correspondence which I am uncomfortable sharing. PM Karebear13 for her nightmare experience with nitrite. Or look up her posts on the matter.
There have been other members with this problem whose names do not immediately come to mind. (I'm really out-of-it, today.)
This is also a problem among members over at TFK. I get a lot of background by following the "Similar Threads" just below the posts on this and other pages.
Well, good news. I did a water change today since I'm leaving for Thanksgiving Break tomorrow and my ammonia's reading 0 (well not QUITE zero, but it's a lot more yellow than it was at the beginning of this thread), nitrites are 0, and nitrates are back at their usual 5ppm. I'm not sure what happened, but I'm glad it did. Thanks for all your help, everyone!
Oh, but you just reminded me, I got hornwort, duckweed and moneywort at the end of last week. I think they might actually have something to do with the lower level of ammonia/nitrates. I'm also getting some more anacharis within the next week and a half, so between all of these plants (forgot to mention that i have some of wisteria in there!), I'm hoping my ammonia reading reaches a definite zero. I'll keep everyone updated ~
Wisteria, Duckweed, Hornwort and Anacharis... a panoply of ammonia-suckers that aren't root-feeders. I'm sure they helped. Sometimes it's just a mystery why a cycle will stall and at what stage.
Omg wow....I thought I knew everything I needed to know but now I feel helpless. What are we supposed to do if our tap water has ammonia in it? I would likely just move and save myself the headache -_-
I personally don't know how the problem suddenly solved itself, because it's one I've been battling since I moved into my apartment complex in August. However, like I said earlier, what seemed to help was the addition of more plants. I already had one marimo, some wisteria and like two/three stems of anacharis, but since I've added more wisteria, some duckweed, three stems of moneywort and hornwort, the ammonia reading's gone down to *almost* zero.
More important than how fast, to me, is what are your readings just before a water change, and after. Of course you're using Prime or a conditioner which converts ammonia instantly to ammonium.
We could all learn a lot if we knew how the tank reduces that ammonia/ammonium on a day-to-day basis.
Would you do that and post it here? Thanks, Ravyne.
I'm actually not able to do that at the moment. I'm at my parents house for the Holidays and won't be back at my apartment until Sunday. I'll post it then.
My tap water has .25ppm ammonia in it. Test the tank water before my water change in my cycled tank and it's .25ppm as well as right after the water change. I use prime as my conditioner. So I generally assume the .25ppm is my baseline reading
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